Gov's Proposal Makes No Cents For Current MAP Students

Low-income college students have a glimmer of hope now that Governor Bruce Rauner has included money for Monetary Award Program, or MAP grants, in his budget plan. But students already in school may not enjoy the benefit.

Rauner's proposal is for the 2018 fiscal year, which begins in July. But students currently in college are racking up 2017 bills.

In a senate committee this week, Sen. Pat McGuire, a Democrat from Joliet, tried to plead the students’ case to Rauner's budget chief Scott Harry.

"Students and their schools who were promised MAP grants -- 120,000 students in all -- have received no MAP grant funding for the recently-concluded fall semester nor for the current spring semester. So what is the administration's plan to fulfill its promise?" McGuire asked.

Harry responded that those bills can't be considered until a balanced budget gets passed.

McGuire persisted:

"So if the balanced budget you mentioned is achieved in June, when do you anticipate that the fy 17 backfill for MAP would occur?” he asked.

But Harry stuck to his script.

"I will say that: The sooner that a grand bargain is reached, the better off the state of Illinois' finances will be,” Harry said.

The state of Illinois hasn't had a full budget since 2015, and Rauner's latest plan is unlikely to get a warm reception in the Democrat controlled legislature.

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The ongoing state budget impasse, now in its second year, has been particularly tough for low-income college students who rely on the state’s Monetary Award Program -- known as the MAP grant -- to help cover tuition. The state has delivered only a fraction of the money promised for those grants, and schools have had to choose between covering the grants using their own reserves or billing the students. The latter choice leaves campus financial aid officers with the task of breaking the bad news to students. We asked Sue Swisher, executive director of financial aid at St. Xavier University in Chicago, to tell us how those conversations go.

Low-income college students promised state help paying for tuition will continue to go without it. Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner has followed through on his pledge to reject funding for the Monetary Award Program.

Gov. Rauner vetoed Democratic-backed legislation to pay for so-called "MAP grants" Friday afternoon. Students had traveled to Springfield in recent days to rally in support of the plan.

About a dozen college and university officials gathered at the capitol today to remind lawmakers of the desperate situation schools find themselves in. Most have gone for a year with less than a third of expected state funds. The coalition included presidents of institutions as enormous as the University of Illinois System and as small as the private liberal arts school Illinois College in Jacksonville, whose president warned that state funds need to come quickly.